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AN ESSAY 



AT 



DEER HUNTING 




BY J. N. KIMBALL 



AN ESSAY 

AT 

DEER HUNTING 



J. N. KIMBALL 



Did you ever go gadding about after the brown-eyed deer 
in the deep recesses of his native wood? If not then you 
have missed some things which will come into your life in 
no other way, believe me. 

I have hunted more or less all my days now for one thing 
and now for another as the case happened to be. Nearly 
all these hunts have been made with but one single object 
in view, something to eat, so when I was invited to search 
for the festive buck in his woodland wilds I thought that 
having the same objective point, something to eat, I was 
well fitted by long experience for the job. I am a good 
hunter, if I do say it myself, and whether it be in chasing 
the elusive collar-button from its lair in the dingy caves 
under the lower berth of a sleeping car, or in digging and. 
delving for the meaning of a sloppy and slipshod outline 
in the giddy whirl of some shorthand turkey-trot, so far 
as hunting goes, I am willing to give almost anyone cards 
and spades and little casino and wager my salary on win- 
ning the game. 

And right here 1 want to call your attention to the fact 
that this essay has to do with hunting only and that it has 



Copyright 1914 By J. N. Kimball 



nothin"^ at all in common with another and similar essay 
which I am planning to write upon the subject of finding. 
Hunting and finding are two totally diflferent things as my 
experience with collar-buttons and shorthand notes long 
ago taught me. If no mention of finding anything is made 
in these pages please bear in mind that it in no way de- 
tracts from the value of this essay as an essay, in fact to 
my mind it adds to its beauty because it shows that I am 
doing my best to stick to my text and not go wandering 
about, losing the thread of my discourse and hopping from 
one subject to another just for the sake of a change, like 
a spider on a hot stove. Xo, you will please note that this 
essay from start to finish follows the lines laid down in the 
title and there are a good many writers who might profit 
by following my example. 

And that brings me to another point which is that the 
printer made an error when he set up the title in type; he 
spelled it all right and he made three lines of it just as I 
told him to do but for some reason best known to himself 
he made the second line so small that you have to put your 
glasses on when you look for it, although it is the most 
important word in the whole outfit and should have been 
.set in big, black letters, like the scare head of a divorce 
trial in a yellow journal. I feel obliged to call attention to 
this as otherwi.se I would be deluged with letters from kind 
friends and some people who are not so kind — a very dififer- 
ent kind, in fact, — all of whom would write me long and 
dreary ej^istles tending to show that 1 had misled them into 
reading an essav on deer hunting whereas thev found 



MAR 26 1914 



nothing- which was of any great help to them in that re- 
spect. That is not it at all, this is an essay at deer hunting- 
made by myself, and this explanation ought to make every- 
thing serene. And right here, if any other error is found 
in these pages it is also the printer's error, not mine; that 
is what I pay the printer for. to make errors, or at least 
to take the blame for any that are made. Having made 
this plain I will now resume the thread of my tale which 
has become a little twisted by the duty imposed upon me 
of setting you right at the start. 

When the leaves on the trees begin to change from livid 
green to rainbow tints and mountain and valley revel in 
all the hues of the painter's palette ; when I can look at the 
hills through half-closed lids and imagine myself gazing 
with rapture on Turner's famous painting of "The Ship- 
wreck;" when the corn is cut and gathered into little stacks 
like Indian tepees and the fields where they stand look like 
home-made quilts, with patches of brown earth, green stub- 
ble and bright yellow pumpkins ; when the wild goose honks 
at me in the early morn and the black duck makes his call 
on me at eventide ; when the piping tenor of the little frogs 
and the deep bass of the bulls sound their chorus all through 
the lonely night from the edge of every pond and marsh ; 
when all these things happen and some others which I can- 
not now recall. 1 feel an intense elesire hard to define and 
.often harder still to gratify, a longing which is akin to an 
instinct and yet one which will not be denied; it is the call 
of the wild and when I hear it 1 know it is up to mo to go 
into the attic and uet out mv iiiin. 



I have made so many mistakes in my life that I feel it 
my duty to warn others ag'ainst making- them and for that 
reason T want to put you right on one ])oint as regards 
hunting. Before I set out on the trip the results of which 
are recorded in this essay, a bosom friend said to me: "I 
am glad you are going to take a few days off and know 
you will have a fine time, but I shall not cry if vou do not 
shoot anything;" his name is Wolfe and you can see very 
j)lainly why he is afraid of firearms. And my stenographer 
said: "You need the outing very much and T am sure it 
will do you good, but I do hope you will not kill anything." 
It seems to me that those people w^ere a trifle selfish and 
one-sided for if they read the newspapers they know that 
about as many hunters are shot each year as deer and yet 
all their sympathy was wasted on wild animals ; I did not 
get any of it and all the time I was really the one that was 
in the greatest danger. Not every man who goes into the 
vvildwood does so with an insane desire in his heart to kill 
things, that is not it at all ; most men are like myself in that 
respect I think, they enjoy hunting for itself and entirely 
separate and apart from the fact that something may or 
may not be killed. To be sure it is the habit of every man 
who goes hunting to carry a gun but that is because it is 
a part of the game as it has come down to us from the 
remote past. Of course one could hunt without firearms, 
just as one could go to the theatre without his shirt if he 
wanted to, but he does not simply because he falls in with 
the rules laid down by what is known as "good society," 
and for the same sort of reason when he p^oes into the 



woods he takes a gun. Then again, a gun adds weight to 
the scheme in more ways than one; one weigh for example 
is about ten pounds and .inother way — well, have it any 
way you wish, it is all the same to me. 

A gun is supposed to be the first necessity in deer hunt- 
ing, but that is not so, it is really a secondary matter as 
you will see. When I was a lad I could stroll off into the 
wood-lot down back of the house and blaze away all day, 
if I saw fit, at any four-legged or two-legged thing that 
could by any stretch of the imagination be called game; 
but it is not like that at present, not by a long shot. From 
start to finish it has all been changed and you have to go 
at it in a different way. In the first place you have to start 
hunting- before you go hunting, as you might say, for you 
have to hunt up the address of a fellow called a "game 
warden" and who is boss of the state which you intend to 
invade. My happy hunting ground was to be in New 
Hampshire and so I was obliged to hunt for the name of 
the chap who owns that state. When I found who he was 
I wrote him a letter; it was a nice letter, I will say that 
much about it, it was a real, good, kindly sort of an epistle 
for I knew there was no use trying to put up any bluff 
on the boss. I asked him in the most touching way if he 
would let me in on his domain for a few days and he said 
he would. He did not say it just that way because I sup- 
pose he was pressed for time, or maybe his typist was out 
to lunch. If I remember rightly the answer I got was short 
and to the point, "Ten dollars please and be quick about 
it." He was on the iob all right, there is not the least 



doubt about that, take it from me if there is any man who 
knows his business from Dan to Beersheba, it is that same 
g"ame warden. I had those ten plunks laid by for other 
uses but not seeing any way to get out of it I sent them to 
him with my regrets, feeling sure that I should never see 
them any more and I was right, I have not. Then he wrote 
again and asked me some rather impertinent questions, or 
so it seemed to me — about how old I was and how it came 
to pass I had l)een allowed to live so long; how much hair 
I had and what sort of dye T was using on it ; what kind of 
a moustache I wore on week days and did I have the same 
one on Sunday; w4iat was the ordinarv color of my optics 
and was I crosseyed; was I tall or short and if so how 
much. I looked in the mirror and answered all those c[ues- 
tions as best I could and then he sent me a lot of rules and 
things which showed me that T had never been anything 
but a mere amateur, as it were, in the hunting business. 
If it ever comes to you to try to learn shorthand on the 
one hand or to attempt to ntaster the game laws of any of 
our states on the other, take my advice and go for short- 
hand ; you will get through with the job quicker and it will 
pay you better. But it was up to me to master those rules 
or put a curb on my desire to roam in the forest glades 
and so I went at them. 

I found that my ten-dollar ante gave me that game war- 
den's permission to carry a gun and under certain condi- 
tions to use it. If a duck got gay with me between the 
hours of sunrise and sundown T could ])unish him as I 
thought fit, or at any rate according to my skill ; but if that 



duck were wise and chose to call me names between the 
pink twilight and the gray dawai, all I could do would be 
to answer him in his own language, I was not allowed to 
resort to extreme measures. Something of the same kind 
was said about squirrels ; if I remember it rightly, a red 
one could sit on the limb of a tree, hoist his bushy tail over 
his back and abuse me most shamefully, and so far as 1 
was concerned there was nothing for him to be afraid of; 
liut if his fur were gray he was my meat, supposing all the 
time that I could hit him ; he had the privilege of dodging 
and used it. I was allowed to waste all the powder I wanted 
to on blue jays and hawks and crows, but was not to snap 
a cap at an eagle under severe pains and penalties. What 
do you think of that? Who wants a crow anyhow! As 
for deer, the real object of my search, there was Section 5 
and Article 7 and subhead 10 and so on, and there were 
exceptions to every other line. In one county I was not 
to even squint at a deer except during the first week in 
December while in another I might gaze at him free and 
untrammelled from November 1 until December 15. I 
chose this last county simply because, as I reasoned it out, 
I was more likely to have luck if I took six weeks at it than 
I would be if I only took six days. Laws are funny things 
don't you think? For instance, in one county, on the last 
day of November you may be sitting on a cushion of moss 
and pine needles with your back against a tree smoking the 
pipe of peace and in love with all the world, when along 
comes a deer who does not like your looks, he thinks you 
are some green thing maybe, and tries to bite you, but have 



6 

you any right to protect yourself? Kot on your life; it is 
for you to run or to shin to the top of a tree and stay there 
harking" to the merry ha-ha of that short-tailed reprobate 
until he gets tired and starts ofif to find somebody else to 
spring that joke upon. But let that deer try the same game 
the next day and he will find he is up against something 
entirely difit'erent and that his name is Dennis. From all 
this you might make up your mind that one should wait 
until December 1 in all such counties and the reasoning 
would be sound were it not for the fact that in these days 
every farmer in the country gets a brewery calendar sent 
to him, depending on the brand he uses, and in some way 
those deer get sight of it. It must be so, for T have never 
heard of a deer trying to bite a man during the season 
when the law allows the man to retaliate; maybe the ani- 
.mals have some sort of wireless system which spreads the 
news, but at any rate T am prepared to make affidavit that 
the facts are as I have stated them. 

There was another thing that game warden sent me and 
after I learned my catechism T examined it. Tt was a yel- 
low slip of paper with cou])ons attached, all bearing the seal 
of the great commonwealth I was about to lay waste and 
which permitted me, if T would abide by the catechism, to 
lug my gun about as natural as anything and in case of a 
great streak of luck to send home two deer or parts of 
two if T liked and a certain number of game birds. I never 
used those coupons, not because T did not want to use 
them or because I had anv deep-seated grudge against using 
them but for other and n-'avbe better reasons. They gave 



me to understand that I could send home a lot of Wilson's 
snipe, but I never set eyes on any of Mr. Wilson's poultry 
and came back home with the idea that he never had any. 
And they allowed me to cut off at an early age a certain 
number of partridges, woodcock and quail, if I would be 
careful to see that "such hunting and killing is done in a 
manner provided by law and in accordance with the laws 
of this state." Not being a lawyer and not having at hand 
Chapter 38 of the laws of 1905, and for certain other rea- 
sons which I do not care to talk about just now, I refrained 
from partridges, woodcock and quail; as regards the last 
two I refrained so hard that I did not even look at any. 
And to finish with that yellow thing, I was ordered to wear 
it upon my person at all hours of the day and night and to 
produce it and show it at any time and to any person who 
wanted to look at it, without regard to age, sex, color or 
previous condition of servitude; all of which is the truth, 
the whole truth and nothing but the truth and I have that 
paper to show as Exhibit 10 of this date; it was called a 
license but in my case there was no need for the second 
syllable. 

Everything was now in order and I had my license; it 
cost me ten dollars which I really think was more than it 
was worth and just at a time when I had other uses for 
the cash, but to oft'set that a friend kindly offered me the 
use of his rifle. I accepted it gladly, more than gladly, in 
fact, for the gun dealer wanted twenty-five silver cart- 
wheels for the same thing. Then I was told to invest some 
more good money in two hundred cartridges and not know- 



10 

ing any better T did it : T did not weigh the things but I 
kigged them something Hke a milhon miles and I feel sure 
that I am telling the truth when I say offhand that they 
weighed more than ten pounds. My next lesson was in the 
form of a request to take each one of those cartridges and 
roll it up carefully in cotton, and I did it with the idea that 
as they had cost a good deal it was wise to take care of 
them, just as you wrap unset gems in tissue paper, but 
after I had finished the job I was told that I was wrong 
and that it was to prevent the deer from hearing them jin- 
gle in my pocket along with my small change. Right here 
[ began to get a trifle shy for I thought that if I had to 
chase an animal all over the Green Mountains that was so 
mighty sensitive about noises as that, I might as well quit 
before I began ; I said as much but was told that it was up 
to me to be a sport and not to get cold feet. With the ther- 
mometer at ten degrees below zero I tried to figure out how 
those loose ends of mine were going to keep hot, but I was 
wise enough not to say anything about it. There were other 
hints that T received, in fact I was filled so full of points 
that I must have looked like a porcupine. I can remember 
some of them, but I have neither the space nor the desire 
and so am not going to inflict them upon you; if you ever 
start out on a similar quest you will get them fired at you, 
for it is the regular thing, all of which I learned later. 

Now behold me all fixed up with rifle, cartridges and that 
yellow thing T have told you about, the mercury monkeying 
with the zero mark and me sitting close to the stove until 
my companion hitched the horse into the buggy ; there was 



11 

about four inches of snow on the gToiind but not enough 
to make good sleighing so we went on wheels. When all 
was ready I took my cargo of arms and stuff out and placed 
it in the buggy and was about to get in myself when I was 
chased back into the house for what seemed to me to be a 
very stupid reason until it was explained. Just before I 
left New York I went into ATacy's and took a look at the 
sporting goods. I had a very nice chat with the young lady 
behind the counter and casually told her that I was "going 
into the woods to shoot a few deer." She seemed pleased 
to know it and proceeded to show me something in the 
shape of a sheepskin vest, tanned a bright yellow on the 
outside and with the fur on the inside to keep me warm. 
I did not need that vest but I bought it because my con- 
science pricked me. I had told the young woman that I 
^^•as going to shoot a few deer when I really did not know 
whether I should or not — shoot them, that is, and I goi 
even with my conscience and also with the damsel by invest- 
ing five ninety-eight reduced from six twenty-three in that 
sheepskin vest. I had it on when I tried to get into the 
buggy that first day and was ordered back into the house 
to cover it up with a red sweater. I objected but my com- 
panion said, "You would not last more than ten seconds in 
the woods if anybody saw you; that vest is just the color 
of a deer and somebody would shoot you sure." Rather 
than become a target for all the fools in New Hampshire 
I took his advice of course, and put on the sweater. Then 
he fetched out a bright red hat which made me look for all 
the world like a cardinal of the Catholic Church and he 



12 

made me put it on because as he said, "If anybody sees 
that gray cap of yours over the top of a bush he will slam 
it full of holes." Again I ate humble pie and put on the 
red thing simply because that gray cap cost me one dollar 
and fifteen cents and I did not want it made into a sieve. 
Then my companion did me up in coats and shawls and 
mittens and things until I had more wrappings than an 
Egyptian mummy and we started off. 

We drove for a few miles, that is to say he did for I am 
no driver myself, then a few more miles and so on. I was 
cold and the exposed parts of my skeleton, such as my nose 
and my fingers, were aware of the fact, the former froze so 
hard that I could not blow it and the latter might as well 
have been left at home; they were of no use to me. I 
remembered the advice that I had received from my com- 
panion about not getting cold feet and kept that part of my 
troubles to myself hard as it was to do it, especially when I 
recalled the fact that there was not an undertaker within 
fifty miles and I could not for the life of me see what they 
were going to do with the corpse. But things were not 
quite so bad as they looked; we finally drove up to an empty 
house and barn which stood back from the road and in the 
center of a wilderness of mountain and valley ; then we got 
out of the buggy, at least my companion did and I tried to 
but had to give it up and ask him to kindly remove the 
covers and to look and see if I had not left my feet at the 
farm by mistake. The feet were there all right, although 
I should have doubted anything but my eyes, and I then 
tried to have him go back into the barn and look for a der- 



15 

overshoes weighing" seven pounds each and T did that too — 
they were all right going down hill because all T had to do 
was to push them out and let them fall but the lifting of 
those boots over mountains a thousand miles high was a 
weary task; nobod}' said anything about taking along an 
extra supply of wind and it was a serious oversight for that 
was the one thing T needed above all else. What little 
l^ireath I had kept slipping from me in an alarming manner 
and in order to renew my stock I seated myself on the trunk 
of a fallen tree, until I could get enough oxygen for the rest 
of the climb and lit my pipe. I had been told that a deer 
can' smell things farther than any other animal in creation 
— it may be so but all the same it wall be a long day before 
I quit smoking just to ]:)lease any old deer; if he does not 
like the smell he can move. 

Down in the valley the trees had been cut off and the 
bleak No^Tmber wind had full sweep; it frosted my nose, 
bit my ears, robbed me of the use of my fingers and made 
me cry. By degrees, however, the rugged work of climb- 
ing set the heart to pumping the blood with such frantic 
speed that my ears and nose and fingers were soon as warm 
as those of the people sitting before the open fireplace in 
the cozv kitchen in the old farmhouse. I rested long enough 
to get my lungs into working order then I resumed my 
march upwards. About half way to the top, where the old 
growth of timber still remained and towered eighty feet 
above the cushion of moss and leaves, I found that I needed 
some more breath and another smoke and so I sat down 
again. There w^as never a sound save now and then the 



16 

rubbing- of one tree against another or the sighs and groans 
of some old monarch of the forest as it swayed to and fro 
in the wind. It was deathly still and as the minutes went 
by the silence seemed to increase until I could plainly hear 
the ticking- of my watch and the pumping of my heart, when 
all of a sudden, zuhat zvas that? It gave me a start as any 
sound gives one a start in the middle of a thick and silent 
wood; tap, tap, tap. I could not repress a smile when it 
came to me that it was but the pecking- of a woodpecker 
against the body of a dead and hollow tree ; it is a common 
enough sound in the woods, but here, with all my nerves 
on edge, it made my l^ristles rise. I peered about carefully 
and was soon able to locate the bird and to watch him as he 
tapped the old and decayed stump and dodged around it 
from one side to the other in search of food. 

It is queer how the mind will work in such a place and 
what slight causes will dig up some incident from the for- 
gotten depths of the long ago. From where I sat I could 
look over the broad expanse of more than one county and 
miles away in the distance, flashing brightly in the sunlight, 
lay a body of water I knew very well, Mascoma Lake. 
That lake was the scene of an event the memory of which 
had been dead for many a long year, but which came back 
strongly and vividly when I heard the tapping of that wood- 
pecker and was something like this : 

It was more than half a century ago and the stage setting 
was a very small village lying along the shore of that lake, 
a village of hardly a score of houses. It was a fine day in 
summer; the birds were singing on every bough, the hay 



13 

rick; he complained that I wanted him to do all the hard 
work and refused. After a while I managed to reach the 
ground, but will not trouble you with the details as to how 
I did it, for this yarn is melancholy enough without them 
and I do not want you to shed tears until you get to the 
right place; then I toddled along as best I could until I 
stood in the door of the old barn. Cold as I was I could 
not help expressing my admiration; at my feet flowed a 
little river, now in calm pools and frothy back waters and 
now leaping and tumbling over boulders and making minia- 
ture torrents, trying to rival larger streams with its noise 
and serving as the bottom of a frame through which I saw 
piled one above the other, hill after hill and mountain after 
mountain, while away in the distance were snow-capped 
Cardigan and Ascutney on the one side and the shining 
peaks of the White Mountains on the other. I would have 
stayed right there and have frozen to death while I enjoyed 
it if I had been allowed to do so, but having seen the horse 
w^armly housed my companion told me I would do well to 
take off my overcoat and leave it in the buggy. I had my 
doubts about it, but being as cold as I thought it possible 
to be at the time I judged that the removal of one or two of 
my outer skins would not make any difference as I could 
not be any colder anyhow so I peeled off the coat. Then 
he aimed a finger at a mountain some half a mile or more 
to the leit and remarked in an easy sort of way, "You go 
up to the top of that and then down into the valley on the 
other side and up on top of a hill you will find behind it 
and if you have good luck you may run across some fresh 



14 

deer tracks in the snow ; if you do then just follow them 
and if you jump a deer keep after him until you get him 
if you have to g"o a hundred miles." All this was plain 
enough; I told him I would do so if T lived through it and 
started off. He called me back to get my gun. I did noi 
really see why I should need that gun but after thinking it 
over the idea struck me that maybe it would sound better 
in the newspapers if T were "found dead with his trusty 
rifle by his side," than if I were simply "frozen stark and 
stiff and lying like a log in the snow," so I took it U]) and 
off I went. 

I crossed the little river on a shaky foot bridge, but it 
was no foot .bridge for me, not much ; my cranial makeup 
is adorned with one big Immp loaded to the muzzle with 
the trait of caution and that Inimp suggested that a meek 
and prayerful attitude was more suited to my years and 
that I was never cut out for the star part in a tight-rope- 
walking stunt, and T took the hint ; \ am not ashamed of 
it and I would do the same thing again. Having gotten 
across I proceeded on my w-ay and as I went on my spirits 
and my temperature both rose; the latter went up so fast 
that I would have been willing to peel off more skins if 
there had been any place to put the peelings where I could 
have found them again. T reached the foot of the first 
mountain and began to climb; it was "going up" and no 
mistake about it. Right here T found the advice that had 
]:)een given me was lacking" on one point ; I was told to carry 
twenty pounds of gun and things and I did it; T was told 
that as extra covering for my feet T should wear a pair of 



17 

makers were making music in the fields and the bees were 
flitting from blossom to blossom in search of their winter's 
store of honey. And the hero? Me! Behold that hero, 
in all the dignity of his first trousers, a mite of a chap who 
had not lived long enough in the world to have become tired 
of its good things, a short half dozen years at the most, and 
with all a small boy's love for the out-of-doors. 

My father worked as a cabinet maker in a small shop 
at the edge of the lake where it had been dammed for power. 
Out of the lake ran a little river which to my childish eyes 
looked like a roaring torrent and to my mind was equal to if 
not larger than the Mississippi. Where the lake became a 
river was what is called a "flume," a sort of huge wooden 
trough by which the water was directed against the wheel 
that gave the power which ran the machinery in the shop. 
The water in the flume was deep and flowed swiftly and 
a strong man would have found it difficult to breast the 
current if he had fallen into it. 

On the day of which I speak, and which had now become 
so distinct in my memory, I asked my mother if I could go 
down and watch my father at his work in the shop. She 
readily gave her consent but told me to keep away from 
the water and I promised her I would do so ; but it had a 
charm for me much stronger than anything inside the four 
walls of the shop, and a fishing-pole and line which had 
been lef^ standing beside the building by some fisherman 
gave an added temptation. I forgot my promise, caught a 
grasshopper, baited the hook and set out for the flume. I 
crept away out to the end of the timber until my little legs 



18 

dangled c)^'er the edge and but a little way above the rush- 
ing water, dropped my line into the current and waited 
to see what would come next. Something came, all right, 
but it was not just what I was looking- for; I heard my 
father asking in the kindest and softest tone if I had caught 
anything and the next thing I remember is being grabbed 
by the back of the neck and landed across his knee. He 
answered his own question for I "caught something" sure 
enough and the sound that echoed back from the forest on 
the other side of the lake was just like those taps I was 
hearing now against the hollow tree, tap, tap, tap, only in 
my case they came by dozens instead of threes. I also re- 
member that in the railroad station, over on the other side 
of the lake and half a mile away, people said that they heard 
the same sound and from it they formed the opinion that I 
was getting just what was good for me. It seems they 
had seen me in my perilous position and by means of signs 
had warned someone in the shop that I was there and my 
father came out and did the rest. It was plenty as I recall 
it and it taught me that if I went iishing'in the company 
of some older person I would catch more fish and less of 
other things. It must have been a rather sizable experi- 
ence to have remained thus rooted in my memory for half 
a century, but it came back to my mind that day as I sat 
there in the wood and I saw every detail connected with it 
as plainly as though I were looking at the movies. 

And again the chstant lake called up other memories of 
that same far-gone time. By its side, and I could see it 
from my perch, is a little brick school-house which has not 



19 



changed one single iota since the time my bare feet swung 
from one of its benches and I faced with a great deal of 
awe the student from Darmouth College who one winter 
came down to teach our young ideas how to shoot. At the 
close of the term we had an old-fashioned "spelling" bee" in 
which almost every person in the village, pupils and parents 
alike, stood in line and each was spelled down, one after 
the other, the sole remaining disciple of Noah Webster 
getting a prize. That teacher is dead and has been dead 
for many vears, but T have the greatest possible affection 
for his memory because at that time he placed me, five or 
six vears of age, next to the best speller in the outfit and 
at the end of the line. When any of the hard words came 
our way they had to get by the good speller before they 
hit me and he was equal to the task so that I always started 
with a new word, an easy one like cat, or dog, or hen. I 
stood the test all right until but two of us were left stand- 
ing, the good speller and I. There was no wa}- of getting 
ahead of him and T had to quit, but I still have a kind 
regard for the man who so adapted the words to my infant 
mind as to make me come out second in that, my first 
contest. 

These things came l:)ack to me while I was trying to get 
my bellows into working order again. \Mien I found that 
1 was able to let go of one breath and grab hold of another 
without *making a noise like the safety-valve on an engine 
T started on and nearly reached the top of the first hill when 
I came across a fresh deer-track in the snow and it made 
me so nervous that T had to sit down and con over mv 



20 

orders. I had been told that if I found any tracks I should 
follow them until I jumped the deer so I leaned my gun 
against a tree and tried the jumping act. The best I could 
do, so far as I could measure it with my eye, was about 
twenty-four inches and how the dickens I ever managed 
to jump that far with those things on my feet is a mystery 
to me even now. I tried it two or three times and after 
thinking it all over I finally decided that if there was any 
jumping of deer to be done in that county it would have to 
be done by somebody else ; I never was a good jumper any- 
how, so I judged I would have to omit that part of the 
program right then and there. Having made that sane 
resolution I took up my gun and started out to find where 
that deer was going and what he was going there for. It 
was easy enough to tell that he had been along only a few 
minutes before my arrival for his tracks were as plain as 
text-book shorthand. I tried to guess what he was doing 
away up there in the clouds and could not solve the puzzle 
until the idea came to me that he wanted to look at the 
scenery. That deer had sound judgment; at any rate the 
tracks made for the point where he could get the best out- 
look and I followed them because of my orders, not from 
choice. By and by I came to a place where he had grown 
tired and lain down for a nap, sleeping until he heard me 
comino- throusfh the bushes. And that made me remember 
another piece of advice T had received when parting with 
my companion, it was this: "Go slow while the deer is 
walking, for you can tell how he is going by studying the 
tracks, and do not make a bit of noise, but when you jump 



21 

him, follow him just as fast as you can until he walks 
again." I tried to do as I was told, go slowly and not 
make any noise, but I did not succeed Very well. I went 
slowly enough f5r I could not help it and I did not make 
so much noise as a boilel- factory when business is brisk 
maybe, but how anybody coUld push through that tangle 
of fallen brush, briars, snow ^nd dead leaves and not make 
any noise doing" it was too many for me, especially in those 
boots, and then again T breathed so hard T could be heard 
a mile. There was one good thing about it, those cartridges 
did not jingle, that was one point in my favor, though to 
tell the truth if they had made a sound like a Castanet that 
deer could not have heard it over and above the other noises 
I made. 

Finally, as I say, I came to the place where that deer had 
lain down to snooze. Possibly he might not have heard 
the other racket I have spoken of, being asleep, but my nose 
had gotten thawed out by this time and needed attention; 
probably he heard that and it scared him; I do not wonder 
at it. At any rate something roused him from his slumbers 
and instead of being decent about it and waiting to have 
it out with me, he put his four feet together and made some 
kind of a motion with his body which landed him seven 
yards from the spot in one leap and he kept up that sort 
of thing for some time as the tracks in the snow plainly 
showed. Now it came to me all of a sudden, like a ray 
of light through a dark cloud, that it was the deer that 
did the jumping and not the hunter, that "jumping a deer" 
^^■as a term belono-ine to the business and that the hunter 



22 

did not have to exert himself; I was glad of this and saw 
no reason why T could not follow out the rest of the pro- 
gram all right. By the time this got through my head 
that deer could have been half way to Canada at the rate 
he started off but T went on after him, taking note of the 
fact that I did not need to be careful about noise until he 
commenced walking again. I felt better and pushed on 
as rapidly as possible but as for noise T could not see that 
I made any more now that I hurried than T did formerly 
when I went slowly. That four-legged outcast went over 
the top of the mountain we were on and half way down on 
the other side and I after him until I found where he had 
become hungry and stopped to scrape the snow off some- 
thing edible. Here again he heard my fairy footsteps I 
suppose, for he jumped once more, this time about twenty- 
five feet, and ^^^as off and away down into the valley. It 
was easy, as I have said, for me to throw those boots down 
hill and I rather think I pushed my antlered friend a bit, 
for at the foot of the next mountain he jumped again and 
took the elevator for the top story as before. I followed 
and I not only followed but I kept following for more than 
ten miles and mv companion afterwards told me that prob- 
ably that deer was never so far in advance of me but he 
could have sworn to my identity in any court of law in 
the land. Finally the day began to be warm — I had been 
so for some time; the temperature began to go up and 
with the rise came a Scotch mist which covered the moun- 
tain like a blanket. It was so dark that I could not see any 
object with certainty for more than a hundred feet and 



23 

as that deer still seemed to scorn my society and refilsed 
to remain for an interview, I got real mad. I said, "Here 
I have been chasing you for four hours, first up hill and 
then down dale, and I have tried in every way I know to 
get a chance to speak to you. I have not harmed you at 
all — it was not my fault, I will grant that, but it is so 
all the same. If you have not enough courtesy in you, to 
let up on that jumping business, I am done. I am going 
to bid you a fond farewell and you may go wherever you 
are going or to Halifax for all of me." Then I turned and 
started right back for the abandoned farm. 

That is what I thought I did. I was told later that what 
T should have done was to follow my own tracks back- 
ward, but I did not have sense enough to do that ; I thought 
it would be much easier to take a short cut. I ought to 
have known better for I have seen a good many short cuts 
made in my business and they nearly always proved dis- 
astrous to the fellow who took that road. It was dark and 
gloomy and dam]) and at every twist and turn the land- 
scape took on a ghostly and unnatural aspect. I stumbled 
along noisily because I had gotten through deer hunting 
for that day and noise was no bar to my progress, when all 
of a sudden I found that I was climbing a mountain where 
no mountain ought to be. This took my wits away and 
bothered me so much that I sat down on a rotten stump 
to think it over. I have been in the woods many times but 
never in any like that where the very hills got up and 
marched from place to place at the slightest notice or with 
no notice at all. The mountain I was on ought not to be 



24 

there and I was certain of it and peering- through a break 
in the mist I could see another peak, just ahead of me, a 
new one which had gone over there from somewhere else 
during" the morning. Then it came over me that maybe 
1 was lost but I was ready for that ; I carried a pocket com- 
pass and I pulled it out and opened it. Here was a still 
greater mystery; for some unknown reason that compass 
pointed in exactly the wrong direction and all the shaking 
and pounding 1 could give it did not make it mend its man- 
ners. That was a stunner, for when one pins his faith to 
a watch or a time-tabk or a compass and any one of them 
goes back on him he weeps and has occasion for doing so. 
I was about to shy that compass over the nearest precipice 
when the thought came to me that having bought the thing 
from a reputable firm in New York it was up to me to 
follow its orders and then when I got back home to carry 
it to the chap from whom I bought it and demand the return 
of my money with whatever of sarcasm and reproach 1 
could bring to bear on him at the moment. So I started 
out the way it pointed and after wandering around in re- 
gions as new to me as the Cape of Good Hope I suddenly 
came upon the foot-bridge over the river opposite the 
abandoned farm from whence I had started in the morn- 
ing. I w^as tired and hungry and we had left our lunch in 
the barn, but my companion had reached the ])lace before 
1 did, so I had to keep my a])petite for the supi)er awaiting 
us when we got back to the farm. 

While riding home I described my adventures as well as 
1 could and my companion got very excited over it all and 



25 

said, "We will ii^et an early start to-morrow and we will 
begin where yon left off and follow that deer nntil we get 
him." I told him that nothing would please me better, that 
I had not enjoyed myself so much for a couple of years 
past, but I had stuft'ed so much sport into that one day that 
I did not really feel the necessity for any more for at least 
another decade and that if the lust for hunting came upon 
me in the meantime I would recall these adventures and 
exercise my imagination. 

Looking back over my essay at deer hunting I can see 
many things to be grateful for. In the first place I was 
able to return that rifle to my friend without having to go 
to the trouble of cleaning it and as there had been no wear 
and tear on it he charged me no rent, there is something in 
that. Then again 1 used none of those valuable cartridges ; 
I have them yet and there are enough of them to last me 
a century I judge. And I also have that compass; when 
I got home I started down town intending to return it to 
the man who sold it to me and get my money back but 
after thinking the matter over I decided to give it another 
chance; I will take it down on the lower East Side and see 
if it will pilot me safely home, if it does so I will forgive 
it. My boots and red hat I left up in the country; the 
boots were in fine condition but I had an idea they might 
cause remark if I wore them on Broadway, although they 
would be mighty handy in the subway to keep people off 
my corns; mavbe 1 will send for them later. As for the 
red hat, I hated to ])art with it but a red hat does not har- 
monize with my complexion so that is probably a total 



26 

loss. The shee])skin vest I offered for sale at a reduced 
price and could probably have realized something on it but 
it suddenly struck me that there were certain persons to 
whom I would like to loan it. My companion said if I wore 
it I would be shot full of holes and if the persons to whom 
I refer will borrow it, one after another, I shall be more 
than pleased to risk the vest, in fact there are one or two 
who can have it as a gift — first come first served — there is 
no choice so far as I am concerned. Of course, T hate to 
spoil a perfectly good vest like that, but I don't want to be 
selfish in the matter and am willing to make the sacrifice 
under the circumstances. 



